The Construction of Social RealityThis short treatise looks at how we construct a social reality from our sense impressions; at how, for example, we construct a ‘five-pound note’ with all that implies in terms of value and social meaning, from the printed piece of paper we see and touch. In The Construction of Social Reality, eminent philosopher John Searle examines the structure of social reality (or those portions of the world that are facts only by human agreement, such as money, marriage, property, and government), and contrasts it to a brute reality that is independent of human agreement. Searle shows that brute reality provides the indisputable foundation for all social reality, and that social reality, while very real, is maintained by nothing more than custom and habit. |
Contents
Creating Institutional Facts | |
Language and Social Reality | |
The General Theory of Institutional Facts Part | |
The General Theory of Institutional Facts Part | |
Background Abilities and the Explanation of Social Phenomena | |
Attacks on Realism | |
Could There Be a Proof of External Realism? | |
Truth and Correspondence | |
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Common terms and phrases
agentive functions argument assigned Background behavior believe brute facts brute physical causal chapter claim collective acceptance collective intentionality concepts consciousness constitutive rules conventional power correspondence theory counts create creation of institutional deontic direction of fit disquotation criterion distinction dollar bill entities epistemically objective Everest has snow example exists independently explain external realism human identical with Diogenes imposed imposition of function institutional facts institutional reality institutional structures intentional intrinsic language dependent linguistic logical structure logically equivalent marriage mental normal understanding notion ontologically objective perform performative utterances phenomena philosophical prelinguistic presupposes presupposition question relation represent representations require screwdriver Searle sense sentence simply slingshot argument snow is white social facts social reality socially constructed reality sorts specified speech acts status-functions suppose symbolic teleology term theory of truth things thought true statements truth conditions unconsciously utterances virtue words X term